MANGALORE: The wonderful thing about coastal Karnataka is in sharp distinction to its politics. Sparkling backwaters and swaying hands have been as soon as witness to a land of spiritual co-existence. But over the last two decades, this picturesque area has been caught up in the politics of spiritual polarisation.
It was once from here the sangh parivar first started its campaigns, beginning with Hindu mobilisation in opposition to migrant Muslim staff from Kerala. In the 1983 Assembly elections, the BJP received 18 seats for the primary time, most commonly from the coastal districts of Dakshina Kannada and Uttar Kannada.
In 2013 the Congress breached the saffron castle and swept the area as the sangh parivar confronted a insurrection within. Out of 12 seats of Dakshin Kannada, Congress received 10, BJP 2. In Mangalore out of eight seats, Congress received 7. A yr later although in Lok Sabha polls it was once business as usual as the BJP received all 3 MP seats of coastal Karnataka.
Mangalore incorporates 18 per cent Muslims, 13 per cent Christians and 69 per cent Hindus. "The mix of religions here makes Mangalore a communal tinder box," says Suresh Bhat Bakrabail of the PUCL, " but those fomenting communal troubles are only playing politics. It is not religious but purely political communalism." In 2014 Bhat himself was once attacked and his face smeared with cow dung via suspected Bajrang Dal activists.
The city based Komu Sauharda Vedika or Karnataka Forum for Communal Harmony has compiled a comprehensive file appearing that from 73 communal incidents in Mangalore in 2010, the determine peaked to 228 in 2015 and remained prime at 125 in 2017. The file states communal incidents are becoming extra diverse, from ethical policing, to attacks on farm animals buyers, attacks in opposition to alleged conversions, hate speech and attacks and counter attacks via Hindu and Muslim vigilantes. Social activist and Mangalore based Muslim training campaigner UH Umar says there may be unavoidable concern among minorities who prefer to keep a low profile. "We tell our people not to be scared, but many are fearful, among the Muslims too some amount of communal movements are growing as a reaction to this."
Jagdish Shenava Mangalore president of the Vishwa Hindu Parishad then again asserts that it was once no longer the Hindus who started the violence in Mangalore however it was once the PFI or Popular Front of India or Islamist organization that started it and Hindus are handiest reacting. Sitting in the VHP office in a slim bylane of Mangalore Shenava is a rotund mustachioed determine in a saffron kurta. "We will unite the Hindus in this election and after the election will ensure a total ban on cattle slaughter and love jihad in Karnataka." Shenava believes Siddaramaiah's Congress executive is anti Hindu which has completely failed to forestall the killing of Hindu adolescence.
However others really feel they're on the receiving end of proper wing violence. In Mangalore's Poor Clares Adoration Monastery cloistered nuns tell TOI concerning the terrible morning of September 14th 2008 when their monastery was once attacked and the crucifix on the altar was once badly damaged. At 10.30 am gangs armed with sticks got here running into the church. In eerie silence they went about smashing glass circumstances containing sacred icons, tearing down crucifixes and even thrashing those that have been praying. The nuns have preserved the damaged altar crucifix in a pitcher case on which the date is marked: 14.09.2008, 10.20 am. They have additionally preserved the firewood sticks used to assault their church. "At first we did not know what was happening" recollects Mother Stella Mary fundamental of the monastery, "then we heard them talking to each other about orders to strike the nuns, but they could not get to us because we are cloistered and stay behind closed doors."
From in the back of barred home windows, nuns cling up the blunt firewood sticks that the goons left in the back of. The assault was once allegedly mounted via the Bajrang Dal on the pretext of compelled conversions and despatched surprise waves through the Catholic group of Mangalore.
"We were shattered by this attack on completely defenceless nuns," says former school teacher Patsy Lobo. Lobo believes the assault was once designed to spread concern in the Christian group. "We had never closed the doors of our ancestral home in Mangalore but now we keep it bolted and my children are scared that somebody will come and destroy the Virgin Mary statue in my garden." Her husband, eminent Mangalore doctor Derek Lobo issues out that when the church attacks of in 2008, as an alternative of the attackers being delivered to justice, Christian boys who had protested the attacks have been rounded up and stressed via the police. "Christian boys kept being asked to come to court which interfered with their lives and careers."
UH Umar says miscarriage of justice of police and regulation courts result in minority youths infrequently becoming aggressive but many NGOs among Muslims are counseling peace and positive thinking. "We ask Mangalore Muslims to think positive and not to stereotype Hindus as uniformly against Muslims," says Umar. "We tell them there are many good Hindus." He says many Muslims are now campaigning for greater participation in the democratic procedure equivalent to making sure they're registered on electoral rolls.
Muslims here have extra clout than in different parts of Mangalore, four out of five department shops in the city are owned via Muslims and the are 2 Muslim MLAs in the district. What about instances of Muslim vigilantism equivalent to in March in Belthangady the place Muslim boys attacked family of a Muslim lady noticed chatting with Hindu boys? "We condemn such acts," says Umar, "and counsel youth that if they become aggressive they will only give Hindus more grounds to attack them."
Bhat believes the reason why the communal scenario remains traumatic in Mangalore is because of attitudes of police and administration which incessantly succumb to pressure from proper wing sources. He issues to the flimsy prosecution in the case involving Sri Ram Sene chief Pramod Muthalik and the Sene's assault on Mangalore's Amnesia Pub in 2009 when girls have been pulled from the pub via their hair and slapped via Sene. Muthalik was once let off because of loss of proof. When Jignesh Mewani and Prakash Raaj got here to Mangalore for conferences the police to start with denied them permission. "Unless police and courts are completely neutral, grievances will grow among all religious communities," says Bhat.
Mangalore's skyline is marked via a great quantity of church buildings temples and mosques. However religious tensions simmer below the skin even as azaan, aarti and church bells ring out all through day-to-day lifestyles on this bustling coastal the town. The battle of Karnataka 2018 is being pitched as hate vs cohesion.
It was once from here the sangh parivar first started its campaigns, beginning with Hindu mobilisation in opposition to migrant Muslim staff from Kerala. In the 1983 Assembly elections, the BJP received 18 seats for the primary time, most commonly from the coastal districts of Dakshina Kannada and Uttar Kannada.
In 2013 the Congress breached the saffron castle and swept the area as the sangh parivar confronted a insurrection within. Out of 12 seats of Dakshin Kannada, Congress received 10, BJP 2. In Mangalore out of eight seats, Congress received 7. A yr later although in Lok Sabha polls it was once business as usual as the BJP received all 3 MP seats of coastal Karnataka.
Mangalore incorporates 18 per cent Muslims, 13 per cent Christians and 69 per cent Hindus. "The mix of religions here makes Mangalore a communal tinder box," says Suresh Bhat Bakrabail of the PUCL, " but those fomenting communal troubles are only playing politics. It is not religious but purely political communalism." In 2014 Bhat himself was once attacked and his face smeared with cow dung via suspected Bajrang Dal activists.
The city based Komu Sauharda Vedika or Karnataka Forum for Communal Harmony has compiled a comprehensive file appearing that from 73 communal incidents in Mangalore in 2010, the determine peaked to 228 in 2015 and remained prime at 125 in 2017. The file states communal incidents are becoming extra diverse, from ethical policing, to attacks on farm animals buyers, attacks in opposition to alleged conversions, hate speech and attacks and counter attacks via Hindu and Muslim vigilantes. Social activist and Mangalore based Muslim training campaigner UH Umar says there may be unavoidable concern among minorities who prefer to keep a low profile. "We tell our people not to be scared, but many are fearful, among the Muslims too some amount of communal movements are growing as a reaction to this."
Jagdish Shenava Mangalore president of the Vishwa Hindu Parishad then again asserts that it was once no longer the Hindus who started the violence in Mangalore however it was once the PFI or Popular Front of India or Islamist organization that started it and Hindus are handiest reacting. Sitting in the VHP office in a slim bylane of Mangalore Shenava is a rotund mustachioed determine in a saffron kurta. "We will unite the Hindus in this election and after the election will ensure a total ban on cattle slaughter and love jihad in Karnataka." Shenava believes Siddaramaiah's Congress executive is anti Hindu which has completely failed to forestall the killing of Hindu adolescence.
However others really feel they're on the receiving end of proper wing violence. In Mangalore's Poor Clares Adoration Monastery cloistered nuns tell TOI concerning the terrible morning of September 14th 2008 when their monastery was once attacked and the crucifix on the altar was once badly damaged. At 10.30 am gangs armed with sticks got here running into the church. In eerie silence they went about smashing glass circumstances containing sacred icons, tearing down crucifixes and even thrashing those that have been praying. The nuns have preserved the damaged altar crucifix in a pitcher case on which the date is marked: 14.09.2008, 10.20 am. They have additionally preserved the firewood sticks used to assault their church. "At first we did not know what was happening" recollects Mother Stella Mary fundamental of the monastery, "then we heard them talking to each other about orders to strike the nuns, but they could not get to us because we are cloistered and stay behind closed doors."
From in the back of barred home windows, nuns cling up the blunt firewood sticks that the goons left in the back of. The assault was once allegedly mounted via the Bajrang Dal on the pretext of compelled conversions and despatched surprise waves through the Catholic group of Mangalore.
"We were shattered by this attack on completely defenceless nuns," says former school teacher Patsy Lobo. Lobo believes the assault was once designed to spread concern in the Christian group. "We had never closed the doors of our ancestral home in Mangalore but now we keep it bolted and my children are scared that somebody will come and destroy the Virgin Mary statue in my garden." Her husband, eminent Mangalore doctor Derek Lobo issues out that when the church attacks of in 2008, as an alternative of the attackers being delivered to justice, Christian boys who had protested the attacks have been rounded up and stressed via the police. "Christian boys kept being asked to come to court which interfered with their lives and careers."
UH Umar says miscarriage of justice of police and regulation courts result in minority youths infrequently becoming aggressive but many NGOs among Muslims are counseling peace and positive thinking. "We ask Mangalore Muslims to think positive and not to stereotype Hindus as uniformly against Muslims," says Umar. "We tell them there are many good Hindus." He says many Muslims are now campaigning for greater participation in the democratic procedure equivalent to making sure they're registered on electoral rolls.
Muslims here have extra clout than in different parts of Mangalore, four out of five department shops in the city are owned via Muslims and the are 2 Muslim MLAs in the district. What about instances of Muslim vigilantism equivalent to in March in Belthangady the place Muslim boys attacked family of a Muslim lady noticed chatting with Hindu boys? "We condemn such acts," says Umar, "and counsel youth that if they become aggressive they will only give Hindus more grounds to attack them."
Bhat believes the reason why the communal scenario remains traumatic in Mangalore is because of attitudes of police and administration which incessantly succumb to pressure from proper wing sources. He issues to the flimsy prosecution in the case involving Sri Ram Sene chief Pramod Muthalik and the Sene's assault on Mangalore's Amnesia Pub in 2009 when girls have been pulled from the pub via their hair and slapped via Sene. Muthalik was once let off because of loss of proof. When Jignesh Mewani and Prakash Raaj got here to Mangalore for conferences the police to start with denied them permission. "Unless police and courts are completely neutral, grievances will grow among all religious communities," says Bhat.
Mangalore's skyline is marked via a great quantity of church buildings temples and mosques. However religious tensions simmer below the skin even as azaan, aarti and church bells ring out all through day-to-day lifestyles on this bustling coastal the town. The battle of Karnataka 2018 is being pitched as hate vs cohesion.
Mangalore's age old harmony caught in crosshairs of communal hate
![Mangalore's age old harmony caught in crosshairs of communal hate]()
Reviewed by Kailash
on
May 05, 2018
Rating:
